


As I Sat Sadly By Her Side

by spookythings



Category: Rule of Rose (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookythings/pseuds/spookythings
Summary: Diana runs away from the Orphanage, and Clara finds her at the bus stop.For MJ and Bread, a humble Clarana offering.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	As I Sat Sadly By Her Side

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a 14-part album fic challenge, in which each song from a single album will serve as inspiration for the story. The album I chose is “And No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

**_September 1930_ **

It was ridiculous, of course.

I had no money, no family, no sense of direction.

I'd been a ward of the Red Rose Orphanage since I was a tot; my entire world began and ended within the walls of that building.

Where was I even going to go?

"Anywhere else" had sounded good enough back in the relative safety of the dormitory, as I'd stood there shaking after the incident with Meg.

Unable to wipe away the invisible stains of her tears as they'd already dried on my dress, and seeped into my skin.

Unable to remove myself from the memory of her clutching at me, the feeling of her glasses and her damp cheeks and wet, blubbering mouth pressing against me...

So much like him, and I hated them both for what they'd done to me.

* * *

The leaves on the trees and shrubs that lined the path to the bus stop had begun to turn brown. Slowly the world shriveled and died all around me.

I saw something similar on my face when I looked in the mirror.

Saw it in my head when I sat by myself down in the cellar.

The mermaid was shriveling and dying deep inside of me.

The dark sea I had been drifting in for most of my life was much too tainted and poisonous for something as beautiful and pure as her to survive in.

I wondered if I would know...

Once she was gone?

* * *

I'd never seen the bus stop before, but I'd heard Martha mention it, when she'd taken day trips into Cardington to buy supplies or visit relatives, so I knew it must be out there somewhere.

When I found it, I thought the growing sense of dread would subside, but it didn't.

At least it didn't get any worse.

* * *

The wind blew softly, not yet cold enough to be unpleasant, and the sleeves of my dress would keep me warm for the time being, but as I looked up and saw the rain bloated clouds and the storm bruised sky, I felt foolish.

Childish and ill-prepared for such a journey.

I had no schedule for the bus, or any way of telling time even if I did, so I sat on the bench, and listened to the wind crawling through the leaves, and tried not to think of Stray Dog, perhaps also crawling through the leaves, just where I couldn't see him.

* * *

I have no way of knowing how long I sat there alone on the bench.

The bus didn't come, and neither did Stray Dog, and neither did the rain, although the threat of all three tip-toed ever closer with every second I spent there on that bench.

 _What if the bus doesn't run today?_ I wondered, unsure of what day it even was.

Life in the Orphanage was so insulated and isolated, I'd never had to worry about such things as the passing of time, or days of the week; we lived simply, first by the Rule of Rose, and then by the sound of Mr. Hoffman's voice crackling over the speakers.

I felt smaller than I ever had before.

* * *

"There you are," Clara said, and I jumped, startled, out of a daydream in which I had escaped, not on a bus, but an airship. She sat down on the bench beside me, tucking her skirt beneath her and primly crossing her ankles. "The entire Orphanage is looking for you, you know."

"Let them," I said, defiantly.

She accepted this.

"Are you leaving us, then?" She asked, folding her hands together in her lap. "You might have at least said goodbye."

"I would have written you," I said. A lie, perhaps. I'd like to think even I would have been better than that. For her sake, if nothing else. "Once I'd gotten myself settled somewhere."

"I believe you," she said, and she smiled at me. "Still, I would have worried until you did."

"There's nothing to worry about," I argued. "I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. I've done it my entire life."

"So you have," said Clara. Still smiling, but there was no happiness in it. "And I have no doubts that you'll be fine out there on your own, but I can't help but worry. It's what I've done _my_ entire life."

"Are you going to tell Mr. Hoffman?" I asked, imagining the old lech hunting me down and dragging me back.

Touching and reassuring me all the while.

"Tell him what?" Clara asked. "That you've gone away? I think he's figured that much out himself."

Clever teacher that he was.

Would he miss me?

Would he take comfort in her?

I couldn't think such things if I were going to be selfish.

"You could come with me," I offered, suddenly. Immediately an image swelled in my head, bursting and blooming into life, a new and wonderful life, just the two of us. "You're an adult now, you can go anywhere you please!"

Her little teeth pulled and chewed on her lower lip as she considered.

"I've already asked Mr. Hoffman if I could stay on to help him and Miss Martha," Clara said, shaking her head. "He's accepted. I couldn't possibly leave the others, anyway. Wendy needs so much help, and the new girl can't seem to stay out from under foot, and Eleanor..."

Eleanor had become quite the little parasite over these last few months.

Ever since Clara had given her that stupid bird doll.

Of course, Clara wouldn't just abandon the other children.

Who would protect them, if she left?

"Then why bother?" I demanded, crossing my arms across my chest. "If you're not going to make me go back, and you're not going to come with me, why bother following me at all?"

How easily my temper flared sometimes, scaring even me when it sprang from the shadows with eyes aglow and teeth shining through the foam.

Clara never seemed to mind, though.

"It's no bother, Diana," she said. She pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear.

 _I could have done that,_ I thought, crossly.

But I never touched her.

Everything I touched got hurt.

My fingers, like his, were needles and knives.

" _'It's no bother, Diana!'_ No bother, Clara, really? It's like you want me to leave!" I said, accusingly. I didn't really believe it, but anger had seized control of my tongue. "Admit it!"

"Oh, Diana," Clara said, softly. She lifted her hand, perhaps to touch me in some way, but something stopped her like it always did, and she let it drift back down to the bench between us. She looked away.

It would have thrilled me to see Meg flinch like that.

I might have done any number of despicable things to see tears glitter in Eleanor's eyes as she tried desperately to blink them back.

Clara, though, _my_ Clara did not deserve to hurt like she did.

Still, I could not bring myself to apologize.

The best I could do was to staunch the flow of bile and cruelty that poured out of me.

"It doesn't matter," I said, watching as a leaf scuttled and danced down the trenches in the road. "I'm leaving, anyway."

"I just wanted to see you before you left."

"Well, you've seen me," I said. "You can go back now."

"If you don't mind," she said, quietly. "I'd like to sit with you until the bus comes."

I sighed.

I could have kept talking, kept saying cruel things, until I drove her away.

I'd done it before.

It wasn't fun like it was with Meg, or Eleanor, or Amanda, but I could manage it if I had to.

Sitting there, beside her on the bench, for what may be the last time, I simply didn't want to.

"If only you could go with me," I said.

"If only it were that simple," she replied.

After that, we were quiet, and somewhere deep inside me, down at the bottom of the black water that foamed and crashed within me, the mermaid laid her head down on her arms and closed her eyes.

* * *

The bus shuddered to a stop before us, and the doors opened with a groan and a hiss.

The driver sat like a shapeless, faceless lump in the seat behind the wheel, and didn't bother to look at us as I sat there on the bench beside Clara.

My legs, I realized, would not move.

"Will you be alright out there?" Clara asked.

"Of course," I lied. "Will you?"

"I don't know," she responded, truthfully. "I suppose I'll have to try."

The doors closed with another groaning hiss.

"Diana?" Clara asked, and her hand was cold over mine, which I imagined was burning hot and razor sharp. "The bus is leaving."

"Let's wait for the next one," I said.

Clara smiled sadly and squeezed my hand.

By the time the next bus came, and groaned and hissed, and hissed and groaned, and rumbled away, I was still sitting on the bench beside Clara with her hand over mine.

It had grown dark, and the lamp beside the bench had been lit, casting a protective yellow cone of light around us.

"You were right," she said, softly. "What you said earlier. I did want you to go."

I turned to look at her, unable to obscure my surprise. "Why?"

"Because, my dear one," she said, and she turned to look at me in the sickly light. Her eyes were filled with tears, and I thought of the mermaid, slowly drowning. "There's nothing left here for you."

"Don't be foolish," I replied, finding my legs suddenly unbound. "There's you."

"There is so much more out there," she argued, as one tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another.

"Nothing I want, though," I replied.

No Meg to torment.

No Eleanor to punish.

No Amanda to command.

No Clara to sit with me late at night, when the mermaid's dying cries echoed in my head, when my dreams were too twisted and distorted to sleep, when I most desperately didn't want to be alone.

And so I sat sadly by her side, until the crickets creaked to life, and the owls began their ominous chorus, and the first rain drops of the incoming storm began to tap on my head and shoulders.

Only then did she pull gently at my hand, and lead me slowly back to the Orphanage.


End file.
